GROTZ: Wentz in Week 1 ranks at top of Pederson’s best calls of the year

Eagles head coach Doug Pederson had his ups and downs this season, but his decision to make Carson Wentz the starter from Day 1 is the best one he made all season, and will have the longest effect on the franchise.
Jeff Haynes — The Associated Press

It’s been a rough season for Doug Pederson, who, with a 6-9 record is trying to avoid becoming just the second head coach to lead the Eagles to double-figures losses in, oh. a dozen seasons.

Pederson has made some great decisions and some not so great choices in this, his first year as The Man. It’s not been easy with limited power. Pederson has the final say on who plays, not on who the football people give him to play. The latter is the domain of football executive Howie Roseman.

In essence, Pederson has had to base his head coaching decisions on what he has to work with. And it was eye-opening recently to hear one of the team leaders, safety Malcolm Jenkins, hail the job rookie quarterback Carson Wentz did despite operating with less than stellar resources.

“Definitely he’s done a lot with not that much,” Jenkins said. “And we’re going to need some help at some positions. But as you upgrade I think it’s going to make it that much better.”

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Wentz obviously factors into Pederson’s five best and five worst decisions of 2016 with the Eagles.

One that didn’t make the list was the way Pederson managed the locker room, including but not limited to the way he dealt with the national anthem protests gripping the league in September. Pederson gave his players the right to express themselves. While Jenkins raised his fist during the anthem to protest, there was no pressure to make teammates follow. That’s a player’s coach.

5 best decisions

5The tough, physical training camp: There were some tense moments, like when tight end Zach Ertz was sent head over heels on a low hit by rookie Blake Countess, who didn’t make the team. That was during one of the live tackling days. Jordan Matthews tweaked a knee, too. But the contact and rought nature of camp clearly had the Eagles ready to play. Their 3-0 start was no accident.

4Avoiding a quarterback controversy: Remember how Sam Bradford walked out of voluntary workouts when the Eagles traded up in the draft to select a quarterback? How he demanded a trade? How he returned? How Pederson welcomed him back with open arms? Bradford played with a sense of urgency he hadn’t had and became a tradable commodity, landing the Birds a first-round pick. A lot of coaches would have screwed that up and had to deal with a divisive controversy.

3Benching Nelson Agholor: We think Nelson should have been released but that’s not Pederson’s call. The coach benched him. And he’s been better. Not great, but better, since returning from the inactive list. He just might be tradable after the season.

2Telling the media “not everybody” played hard against the Bengals: We wondered if he’d gone off the deep end saying that. It was a week of soul-searching for players who, rightly or not, found themselves defending their efforts. Everyone got the message because we since haven’t seen any quit in the Birds.

1Naming Carson Wentz the starting quarterback for the opener: Veteran Chase Daniel deserved a start or two considering how Wentz had played very little in the preseason. Pederson, however, did everyone a favor by disposing of the “when should he start” specualtion. Except for September, when Wentz was the NFC rookie of the month, it hasn’t always been pretty. But this Sunday he’ll become the first Eagle quarterback to start all 16 games since Donovan McNabb in 2008.

Doug’s five worst decisions

5Believing Agholor could start: We all know how that went. If not for the negative fallout surrounding Josh Huff’s brush with the law, leading to his release, the Eagles would have been better off with him than Agholor.

4Two-point play call versus the Ravens: Not the decision to go for two points, which was aggressive. No, it was the choice of plays. Wentz’s pass over the middle to Matthews was low and tipped incomplete. Rolling Wentz out and using his athleticism to score or throw against an obvious blitz would have given the Birds a better chance to win than the quick pass. Oh, and Ryan Mathews should have been on the field in any event.

3Challenging the incompletion against the Packers: The challenges were all over the place this season. In this game Pederson won a challenge wiping out a two-yard gain, the Birds trailing 17-13 in the third quarter. But it was his second and final challenge, stripping him of the ability to challenge for a quarter and change. It’s worse than burning a timeout. Pederson conceded the next day he’d probably like a do-over.

2Over-aggressive on fourth down versus the Giants: Pederson painted himself into a corner with his pre-game speech, telling players he was going to “be aggressive.” It was knee-jerk reaction to playing it safe in an overtime loss the previous week to the Cowboys. The players didn’t get the message as they were 1-for-4 in fourth downs on the day. That included blowing two chances in the red zone that would have resulted in easy field goals in what became a five-point defeat.

1Calling the double-reverse with Carson Wentz blocking: Do we need to remind you that Wentz was fresh off an examination for a concussion in the last game against the Giants? Or that later, The Franchise told reporters he got his bell rung a little? Cleared or not, there’s no reason to risk the future. Especially against a Giants team that almost always beats itself playing the Eagles.